At them moment it appears that more people are interested in hardcore again. Silo is extensively playing on our server, Mr. Blackout just started season 2 of his awesome hardcore series on youtube. Almost since its beginning Oldschool was a hardcore server, no matter if it was a hype or not. And Oldschool will be hardcore forever.

Howerever, in my opinion the term hardcore describes a whole philosophy about how a computer game (especially a survival game) should be. It is not just about first person perspective (first person perspective). This is one of the reasons I never liked when Bohemia Interactive changed the name from Hardcore to 1pp. In this article I want to give you my opinions about what hardcore should be. Please note that I am aware that DayZ is an Alpha. This is a discussion how I would see the game when it is finished – it’s not a criticism on how it is now.

First person perspective

Of course 1pp is one of the key elements of hardcore. You only see what your character can see. No looking behind walls or round corners. However, the view is somehow restricted on a computer screen. There should be some additional stances that overcome these drawbacks in 1pp. Like peeking round corners, carefully looking through windows or small holes in the wall, tiptoe to peek over walls, etc. Some of this is already possible in Arma 3, so it should be possible for the DayZ standalone as well.

Movement

One of the biggest flaws of the game is the ridiculous fast running speed. When sprinting, player characters run with 22 km/h. So you are sprinting around for hours with 30 kg of additional carrying weight without getting tired. Within 30-40 minutes you can reach almost every corner of Chernarus. C’mon!It was not always like that: when the DayZ Standalone came out, the running speed was much slower. Tactical gameplay was easier because you did not have opponents running around in a firefight like in Quake or Counterstrike. DayZ is a simulation and not a FPS where you can rocket jump around.

With lower running speeds the map automatically becomes larger. You cannot just spawn and run to the airfield to get geared. It might take an hour or more of a dangerous journey to get to NWA and not just 20 minutes of sprinting. This would automatically make vehicles more important. At the moment everybody is just hiding cars in the woods. Almost nobody is using them.Stamina needs to be in the game. The more you carry the less you can sprint. If you are carrying more than a certain amount of weight (e.g. 25 kg) you should not be able sprint at all. Sprinting should be only possible for a short period, like one or two minutes. Afterwards you need to regenerate from exhaustion. Running uphill should be slower as well.

It should be possible to jump over walls or enter the roofs of houses. This is already possible in mods like DayZ desolation, there is no reason why something like that should not be possible in DayZ standalone.

Survival

Each time Brian Hicks is asked to explain what DayZ Standalone is, he says something like “it’s an open world survival sandbox placed in the Zombie apocalypse”. Frankly I cannot second that at the moment. Because at the moment DayZ is a clumsy FPS PVP game in which it is awkward and long taking to gear up. I do not see the survival aspect. There is plenty of food. Staying alive is not difficult, after fifteen minutes, every Bambi is well fed like a baby. Zeds are just an annoyance but they are no real thread.Food should be more scarce. It should not be that scarce like it was in 0.55 but getting healthy state in game should be a real achievement and not something you have after 10 minutes in the game. Hunting and horticulture should be far more important than they are now. Seriously, this is the world after the Zombie apocalypse. Sooner or later the last can of Tactical Bacon has been eaten, and then?

Games like Project Zomboid bring good ideas how it could be: maybe the server runs through a specific cycle. Let say, there is a three week cycle (real time) – in the beginning the server is in a state where stuff is plenty in the towns. Supermarkets are full of food and stuff, in towns even the electricity might work. The more time passes thee scarce resources get. So people are forced to look for resources in more remote places and have to start to hunt. Of course people will start hoarding stuff in their camps, but this is something you would really do in the Apocalypse, eh? After a few weeks, the server is reset to its beginning state. This is just an idea.Tents should not be the only way of accommodation. What about self-built shelters and stashes made of wood, grass and other stuff? You should be able to camouflage your stuff in the woods.

There should be tons of zombies. Go into Cherno? Cool. Just get past the 300 zombies waiting there for incautious survivors. Roaming hordes of zeds. Predators (wolves, bears) in the forest. I know, many of these things are on the DayZ roadmap, but when will the game be ready for that content? Possibly in two years?

Interaction between survivors

A lot of interaction between players in DayZ is KOS. This is because there is simply not that much to do in the game other than PVP. The game mechanics should force people to interact.So for instance: not everybody should be able to repair a car or a weapon. Or to heal other players. So you need to be a car mechanic to properly repair cars (or at least a dedicated hobbyist), you need to be a carpenter to build wooden structures, you need to be a paramedic or a surgeon to properly heal other people, you need to be an armourer to repair and upgrade weapons etc.

So when you spawn into the game, you should choose a profession you had before the Apocalypse. These skills give you an edge over other players. Some of this stuff might be covered by the forthcoming soft skills, so let’s see, how this concept will change gameplay.Bandits might capture mechanics to repair their car instead of KOSing them on the coast. Other people might offer their skills as a service to other survivors in return for food or equipment.

Spawn points

A problem with the Chernarus map is that it has a very long coastline with most big cities along the coast. Navigating on the coast is not difficult at all. You either have the sea on your left or on your right side. So many players never leave the coastal area. And if they do, they just run inland for gearing up only to come back to the coast and PVP there. This is a pity, because like 70 % of this wonderful map of Chernarus are not really used by the majority of players.

There should be inland spawn points but they should be placed well so that they won’t be exploited (like a spawn point in Chernaya Petrovka – everybody would try to get a spawnpoint there, because the NWA is just over the hill).

Night time

Nighttime in DayZ sucks. Nighttime? No problem mate. Just turn gamma to the right and we have a wonderful greyscale version of the game. Nights in DayZ should be pitch black. If the moon is on the sky it should be a little bit better. But no cheating with the gamma settings. When its night, its dark. You have to use torches, flares, camp fires, night vision googles, the headlights of your car to see something. If you do not like this, you are not hardcore, move along.

Ammunition and Weapons

Sometimes I have the impression that the goal of the majority of players in DayZ is to obtain high grade military equipment. After 30 minutes in game, everybody turns into a special forces soldier. Yes, there should be military equipment, and yes there should be high grade military equipment. But it should not be like looting for like 40 minutes and you have full military gear. It should be scarce. Players should really have to earn this stuff.

On the other hand side there should be random military support drops like they are in Arma 3 Breaking Point: a plane or a helicopter drops military crates on random locations. So there should be even a possibility that you get some good stuff on the coast if you are lucky. Sometimes.There should be enough weapons but I dislike the “ridiculous high military loot”-idea some DayZ mods follow. This has nothing to do with hardcore.

Ammunition should be more rare but there should be a higher chance to find a few rounds. Because at the moment you either have no ammo or you have tons of it. When you find a package of .308 rounds, you have 40 rounds. So in my opinion survivors should find smaller amounts of rounds (1-10 rounds) easily, whole packs of ammo should be scarce. So yes, you should easily find five or six rounds for your Winchester. You should not find tons of it. So every time you pull the trigger of your gun you should think about: is it really worth it or should I wait to get a better drop.Of course hoarders and looters will definitely have an advantage, but this is what you do in the zombie apocalypse.

And what about making your own ammo? Just need the armourer profession (see above) and create your own 5.56 rounds. All you need is a workshop, some tools you have to loot for, some chemicals and other resources to make the rounds. What you produce are low quality rounds with a higher chance of misfiring.This were just a few ideas how a hardcore game of DayZ could look like in the future. Some of these ideas might be implemented by Bohemia Interactive into the core game, some of these ideas might be implemented in mods. Some of them will never exist. But perhaps someday there will be an Oldschool mod… who knows?

Do you agree with me? Am I wrong? Let me know what you think about how hardcore gameplay should be in DayZ?

When comes to stamina and weight (which Hicks said that it will be added soon after implementing new player controller) I think it would be better that ppl could use "sprint key" while they are heavily encumbered to do something between jogging and sprinting- but because of whole weight it will very exhausting and it won't last long till they have to stop. Also weight should have impact on walk and jog speed and effort. Also I would be happy if every player had to stop sometimes and rest like 5-10 mins (but rarely ofc) because of general exhaustion,- let's say it would be general stamina, which effects "temporary stamina" used for running and recovered by just sitting for 30 s as it is now.

Survival- proper barricading (finally) and destruction. Maybe not blowing whole buildings with explosives (would be good too, but not necessary), but DESTROYING doors etc while breaking into house, also making holes in such doors would give some tactical opportunities (but i don't count that they will add these, prob it will be easier for them to make door falling apart animation).Also Im waiting when they will add electricity and force players to preserve food- right ppl can have steakes in tents for 1 week and nothing is happening, but after certain update they would be forced to grab refrigerator in order to save it.Also would be nice if they make upgraded fireplaces persistent...

Interaction- Id like to see how soft skills will do the job... The profession is good thing, but IMO it shouldn't block ppl to learn other stuff- let's say that at the beginning results would be terrible. Also players could "teach" other characters some stuff in exchange for other knowledge or stuff (but they wouldnt give 100% of their soft skills, because some of it still is experience, not knowledge). Also bringing back WANTED list could change it a bit...

Ammo, guns and crafting

I would add repairing ruined stuff- for example experienced craftsman could craft 1 good bullet (lets say worn) from 5 ruined bullets, 1 working AK from 2-3 ruined etc (would be good if the gun get damaged when you shoot at it).As you said ammo should ultra rare, but also they could add other variations of it like sub sonic 5.56 and change sound for normal 5.56 muffled a small bit with silencer to louder. Also Im waiting for slug ammo for shotguns Also tracers would be good- but only if you could load it together with normal ammo- so you could load for example 2 normal bullets and tracer etc. I would like to see 2 things from Red Orchestra- 1st is that you can put your gun on window to reduce recoil- also deploy bipod on it.2nd- the screen should be zoomed only inside of scope, not outside of it. also we should be able to see something outside of hunting scopes etc.

" Seriously, this is the world after the Zombie apocalypse. Sooner or later the last can of Tactical Bacon has been eaten, and then?" You do realize that the apocalypse not only is a recent event, but also that 99% of people instantly died? So tell me who supposedly ate all the tac bacon so fast?